Paths
by Iluma Knight
Summary: Much as those around me, I have come to expect nothing "pleasant" from my words or actions. SS/HG oneshot.


I am not a pleasant man; no one has ever looked to me in search of kinship or flowery communication. There was never a need for me to learn such attributes and there was certainly never a figure to show me. Much as those around me, I have come to expect nothing "pleasant" from my words or actions.

Yet that was the word I overheard her use to describe me. I am "pleasant enough" when removed from the view of the masses. I am "not all that bad" once you get past the weather-beaten façade. I was simultaneously changed and resigned to my fate. That man she talked of was indeed coming in to existence. I had tried to become so because of her.

What had started as an innocent enquiry about my wellbeing one night had blossomed in to an ever-deepening connection. In the privacy of my lab or headquarters, we began to assure each other of our existences through timid moments of understanding. At first our words were few and infrequent, but they grew in time to such lengths as odysseys and oceans. With her, it didn't matter that I generally had a negative view of everything; she took my faults and fixed them, if only for the short time we spent talking.

As time continued, I found myself occasionally daydreaming about a "different Severus". I had long ago accepted my lot in life, and since then I had never worked for more. But for her, I had begun to imagine I could try. For her, I imagined I could stop myself before hitting back with an automatic shearing insult or refrain from bestowing my trademark sneer. Perhaps, I had supposed, I could learn to respond to small-talk with equally banal comments and step out of the shadows of my own caricature.

There had been moments during our discussions; fleeting moments of honeyed warmth where something I said made her smile. The way she had glowed and the way it had made me feel had pulled me deeper and deeper in to the daydreams. I began to argue that it wouldn't be so hard to stop fighting the world.

But then I realised, as we all do, that change asks too much of us; of me. Change commands me to bare myself to the elements and accept the jeers. Change exposes the fragments of the surest parts of me that I have kept shielded and hidden for so long; parts that saved me from the precipice so many years ago that they are too delicate and frayed.

I realised this all upon hearing her use that word, when my mind had screamed out not in ecstasy but in anger and it was all it took not to barrel over there and present my ugly rage. But I did not do that to her. I gave her that last piece of me before I closed myself off completely.

The world had rattled the chains and reminded me of my limits. The saddest and most telling part was that no one except her noticed any difference. It further proved to me that I cannot change. Even when I had nourished all the hope for a better me, no one had taken the time to notice. I was then, as I am still, a pawn in a much bigger game of chess. And no one cares much for pawns when their eyes and thoughts are fixed to the figures behind.

It hurt her – of course I did – but from then on I refused to even glance in her direction. I quashed my daydreams with hateful thoughts. I started locking the door to the labs and stopped hanging around after meetings. The few times I was required to speak to her in the months following, I did so with no sense of significance. And through this, I confirmed my true nature; I cared so little for her and the time we spent together that it didn't affect me at all when it ended. It was her fault for daydreaming of more.

Now, with battle upon me and steely words etched through my heart, my thoughts fight to contain her smile, despite the horrors I know are to come. I await the ending to my path, placated by the knowledge that hers is different.

I am not a pleasant man. I can never allow myself to be, nor will the world let me.

* * *

As is the case with the majority of the time I spend on here, I should be using it to sleep. Meh.

All my good intentions at the beginning of the year to finally get around to writing a full length story with multiple chapters (gasp) went to mush. I will try to persuade myself to actually do it, but who know what new ways I will find to throw my life off course in the next few weeks?

Thanks for taking the time to read it. Any mistakes that make you twitchy and short-tempered are all mine. Snapey and Hermione are not.


End file.
